…but I finally took a vacation! A real, unplugged, no wi-fi, locked up my phone kind of vacation. I had all kinds of worries before I did this:
- “My clients won’t feel taken care of!” I really pride myself on being responsive and available to my clients, so the idea of abandoning them was terrifying. But, with everything in the hands of my amazingly capable team (Ted, who has over 20 years of research project management experience, and Raeka, who I’ve worked with since we were “research babies” at Edelman PR in the early 2000s), projects moved along, requests were answered, and everyone survived.
- “I’ll miss out on work!” This happened. Two clients reached out with potential focus group and survey projects during the week I was offline, and by the time I got back to them, they had chosen other partners. I was disappointed, especially because both of them were companies I LOVE working with, but I have to rest assured that more opportunities will come.
- “I won’t relax because I’ll be too worried about my clients.” Clients, I adore all of you, but I didn’t worry nearly as much as I thought I would. I’m a micromanaging control freak, but without my phone, I had no choice but to let all of that go for a few days– what a life lesson!
Instead of everything falling apart as I feared, a lot of wonderful things happened!
- New ideas!! Away from the daily grind, my mind started flowing and I had all kinds of brainstorms, ranging from better, faster, more budget friendly ways we can do what we’re already doing to some crazy, “out there” ideas. If you want to hear about them, or share your own, contact me!
- New energy!! I was so excited to be back in the office yesterday and attacking all my current work with zest. I even shot out of bed at 5AM this morning bursting with ideas.
- New attitude!! I had a lot of time to play on vacation, and I’m looking forward to bringing a little of that back to work with me. I know, research is serious business, but I hope I can bring just a little bit of fun to both respondents and clients.
As a solopreneur (and a perfectionist control freak), unplugging was really hard for me, but I’m so glad I did it. I’m already planning next year’s vacation, but until then, I’m ready to squeeze the juice out of every day and every project!
